Quotes
Quotes about Death
Short is my date, but deathless my renown.
The rest were vulgar deaths, unknown to fame.
In death a hero, as in life a friend!
The cup goes round:
And who so artful as to put it by!
'T is long since Death had the majority.
Cruel as death, and hungry as the grave.
Our Constitution is in actual operation; everything appears to promise that it will last; but in this world nothing is certain but death and taxes.
Then with no throbs of fiery pain,
No cold gradations of decay,
Death broke at once the vital chain,
And freed his soul the nearest way.
His death eclipsed the gayety of nations, and impoverished the public stock of harmless pleasure.
Sir, he [Bolingbroke] was a scoundrel and a coward: a scoundrel for charging a blunderbuss against religion and morality; a coward, because he had not resolution to fire it off himself, but left half a crown to a beggarly Scotchman to draw the trigger at his death.
Can storied urn, or animated bust,
Back to its mansion call the fleeting breath?
Can honour's voice provoke the silent dust,
Or flatt'ry soothe the dull cold ear of death?
To the last moment of his breath,
On hope the wretch relies;
And even the pang preceding death
Bids expectation rise.
There is America, which at this day serves for little more than to amuse you with stories of savage men and uncouth manners, yet shall, before you taste of death, show itself equal to the whole of that commerce which now attracts the envy of the world.
Is life so dear or peace so sweet as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take, but as for me, give me liberty, or give me death!
If a due participation of office is a matter of right, how are vacancies to be obtained? Those by death are few; by resignation, none.
But, oh! fell death's untimely frost
That nipt my flower sae early.
The schoolboy whips his taxed top; the beardless youth manages his taxed horse with a taxed bridle on a taxed road; and the dying Englishman, pouring his medicine, which has paid seven per cent, into a spoon that has paid fifteen per cent, flings himself back upon his chintz bed which has paid twenty-two per cent, and expires in the arms of an apothecary who has paid a license of a hundred pounds for the privilege of putting him to death.
A simple child
That lightly draws its breath,
And feels its life in every limb,
What should it know of death?
'T is not the whole of life to live,
Nor all of death to die.
If God hath made this world so fair,
Where sin and death abound,
How beautiful beyond compare
Will paradise be found!
Return unto thy rest, my soul,
From all the wanderings of thy thought,
From sickness unto death made whole,
Safe through a thousand perils brought.
The nightmare Life-in-Death was she.
Each matin bell, the Baron saith,
Knells us back to a world of death.
Ere sin could blight or sorrow fade,
Death came with friendly care;
The opening bud to heaven conveyed,
And bade it blossom there.
It sounds like stories from the laud of spirits
If any man obtains that which he merits,
Or any merit that which he obtains.
. . . . . . . . .
Greatness and goodness are not means, but ends!
Hath he not always treasures, always friends,
The good great man? Three treasures,--love and light,
And calm thoughts, regular as infants' breath;
And three firm friends, more sure than day and night,--
Himself, his Maker, and the angel Death.
Shall victor exult, or in death be laid low,
With his back to the field and his feet to the foe,
And leaving in battle no blot on his name,
Look proudly to heaven from the death-bed of fame.
